Vikram Seth Poems

All you who sleep tonight
Far from the ones you love,
No hand to left or right
And emptiness above -
...

After a long and wretched flight
That stretched from daylight into night,
Where babies wept and tempers shattered
And the plane lurched and whiskey splattered
...

Once upon a time a frog
Croaked away in Bingle Bog
Every night from dusk to dawn
He croaked awn and awn and awn
...

Sunday night in the house.
The blinds drawn, the phone dead.
The sound of the kettle, the rain.
Supper: cheese, celery, bread.
...

To make love with a stranger is the best.
There is no riddle and there is no test. --

To lie and love, not aching to make sense
...

Let me now sleep, let me not think, let me
Not ache with inconsistent tenderness.
It was untenable delight; we are free--
Separate, equal--and if loverless,
...

Since for me now you have no warmth to spare
I sense I must adopt a sane and spare

Philosophy to ease a restless state
...

What can I say to you? How can I retract
All that that fool my voice has spoken -
Now that the facts are plain, the placid surface cracked,
The protocols of friendship broken?
...

I will be easy company; the blur
Of what I longed for once will fade to space.
...